The popularity of personal electronic devices has grown exponentially over the past decades. While these mobile devices are bringing great changes to our life, not all of these changes are positive. For instance, on the positive side, personal electronics are portable, low power, and provide days of continuous without recharge use such that people are always connected. Indeed, these portable electronic devices provide constant text and telephonic communication with others, provides instant access to the internet, and interfaces with other global electronic networks such as Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) to ensure nobody loses their way. If a user needs to find information about locations, companies, restaurants, news, or radio, the user can get instant access through search systems and the Internet.
One of the negative aspects of the popularity of personal electronic devices is that those devices are constantly present. No longer is there a period of silence or calm as phone calls, text messages, electronic mail (email) messages bombard the user constantly.
The result of this constant bombardment from electronic devices is the growing problem of device-induced attention deficit disorder (DIADD). While this disorder may not be clinically defined quite yet, it nevertheless is understood to refer to the commonplace occurrence of a person's inability to focus for any period of time due to the constant interruption of electronic devices. Indeed, even the most focused individuals find it difficult to concentrate closely when his or her cell phone is constantly beeping, ringing, or buzzing.
The tendency to be drawn to the various electronic devices to make a call, send a text message, review a message, or to service the many requests that constantly appear results in the user becoming increasingly distracted, irritable, impulsive, restless and, over the long term, underachieving. Simply put, the ever-present stimulus from personal electronic devices reduces a person's concentration, and ultimately their efficiency.
Symptoms of DIADD include a person failing to reach their full potential. When a person realizes that they could be producing more but in fact they're producing less, or when they know they're smarter than their work product reflects, and when a person answers questions in obtuse ways that are superficial, then it is likely that they are suffering from DIADD.
Another manifestation of DIADD is the inability to carry a thought from start through to conclusion. Often when a thought process is interrupted, even for the briefest moment, it may require many minutes to regain that focus, and in some cases, those thoughts are lost forever.
Another downside to the ever-available portable electronic device is the lack of a period of reflection when making or responding to calls or messages. For instance, when a person is upset, frustrated, or angry, it is often very tempting to grab the portable electronic device and send an ill-reasoned message. Historically, a person would have a period of time to consider on the message or call while going to the telephone. However, these days the personal electronic device is no further than the user's pocket, which can result in a poorly thought-out message or call being made while the user remains upset, frustrated, or angry.
It is also problematic for users of electronic devices to remember to turn off the device prior to engaging in activities requiring heightened levels of attention and thought. It is too tempting to check email, update social networking sites, such as Facebook, and search the Internet for the latest thought on the user's mind.
In light of the above, it would be advantageous to provide a device which senses the current mental state of the user and provides feedback to the user regarding that mental state. It would be further advantageous to provide a device which senses the user's mental state and interrupts the creation and transmission of calls or messages while in an undesirable, or predetermined, mental state. It would be further advantageous to provide a device for implementation in high-stress environments which monitors a user's mental state, and then alert the telecommunication system and others of the mental state, and automatically reassign or redirect tasks until the user returns to a more desirable mental state. This would be particularly advantageous when soldiers, firefighters, airplane pilots, police officers, and medical doctors are under high stress as failure to concentrate can result in deadly mistakes.